"Don't you trust anybody?" I asked him.

Sonny paused for a moment, considering it; then gave his answer. "No."

That was it. No explanation followed. No excuses. 'No' was his final answer. And with just that one word, that one single syllable, it felt like a knife had just been plunged into my heart.

He didn't trust me. After the many years we spent together, after everything we'd done together and been through, this is how he felt. On the other hand, I trusted him completely and unquestioningly. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for him, and I would have put my own life in his hands without a moment's hesitation if he had requested such. I had absolute faith in him, and now I found out that he had none in me.

And it hurt.

I didn't think it was possible to make things worse, but I noticed when that one word left his lips and pierced me- even afterwards - he refused to even look at me, preferring to stare into the back of Danny's head. His face was completely expressionless, and I felt the knife in my heart twist. I turned away from him as well, staring at the floor mat beneath my feet. At that moment, I didn't want to look at him either.

My thoughts drifted to my father, and how, just an hour ago, I'd also left him on bad terms. And it wasn't even just the two most important men in my life, not long before that, I blew my chances with Jane. She'll never speak to me again.

But what really sucked was that none of this was my fault.

I woke up this morning feeling on top of the world. It seemed like ages ago. By nightfall, everyone that I cared about had turned on me for no good reason. I'd done nothing wrong.

Well, everybody except for my friends: Slick, Mario, Aldo and Ralphie. I had a feeling they'd be busting on me bad tomorrow about what happened tonight, but they wouldn't be mad at me, and they wouldn't hurt me deeply as I felt at that moment. They knew it wasn't my fault that I left them. What choice did I have when Sonny ordered me out of the car? No more choice than they had in the matter. They realized this.

We all jumped, taken by surprise when we had stopped at a red light and heard the sharp raps on the passenger door window. It's a wonder the glass hadn't shattered as Sonny knocked, his ring hitting hard against it.

Slick rolled down the window, and immediately Sonny's eyes locked on me sitting in the backseat, sandwiched between Ralphie and Mario. "C, outta the car," he demanded.

At any point up until then, I would have been moving towards him the moment he said 'outta', but this time, I hesitated. Maybe for no other reason than because I noted his mood hadn't changed since I left him less than a half hour ago. If anything, he looked even more angry and dangerous now than he had then.

Slick didn't know Sonny as well as I did, but still I think he must have been either on something or just plain blind not to realize this. Through poor judgement, or perhaps just pure stupidity, he smiled up at him.

"Sonny, it's ok, he's with us."

As if Slick thought that would actually reassure him?

And what happened, as I could have easily predicted, is it had the opposite effect. It enraged Sonny further.

He directed his attention at Slick, glaring at him. His hand pointed, as one might symbolize a gun, less than an inch from Slick's face.

"Mind your business you," he growled. His tone, as well as his eyes, relayed an unmistakable threat if Slick dared to make another sound.

Now Sonny had never liked my friends. He made no secret of it, either. He'd tell me all the time not to hang around with them; they were nothing but trouble, they'd all end up dead or in jail anyway, and if I wasn't careful they'd take me down with them. Morons and jerk-offs he would call them, adding "And Slick is the biggest moron jerk-off of them all."

And I would say to him "Yeah Sonny, I understand what you're saying, but they're my friends."

"With friends like that, you don't need enemies." He'd reply.

The thing was, though, I didn't understand why Sonny felt that way. All of them, even Slick, never treated Sonny with anything except politeness and respect. Even behind his back, they never said a bad word about him. Sonny's strong dislike for them seemed to me to be just as unjustified as my father's strong dislike for Sonny.

But I didn't listen to my father's warnings about Sonny, and I didn't listen to Sonny's warnings about my friends.

But just because I didn't listen to either of them didn't mean that I wouldn't try to appease them, anyway. "I know you're right Sonny," I'd tell him, "and I'll be careful, I promise."

Then I would get one of his favorite speeches in return.

My father had his own about 'wasted talent'; Sonny had his about 'making choices'.

"Let me tell you something C. I know I've told you this before, but I'm going to keep telling you until it finally sinks into that head of yours. Your life is formed by a series of choices. And you better be very careful about the ones you make, because even the smallest ones can shape your life forever."

A series of choices. I thought about this as I continued staring at the floor mat, still refusing to look at Sonny. It slowly occurred to me that he was right.

Some choices are hard. We struggle with them before making a decision. Like when I was nine years old and circumstances presented me with a choice of whether or not to rat Sonny out to the police for killing that man in the street.

I argued both sides of that issue in my mind as the detectives led me and my father to identify the shooter in a lineup, but it wasn't until the very last moment, as I stood before Sonny and our eyes met, that I made a final decision.

"No sir, it wasn't him."

That one moment, that one choice, definitely shaped my life. I couldn't even imagine how different everything would be for me if I'd just told the truth: "Yes sir, it was him. He had the gun and pulled the trigger. He shot the man 4 times."

Choices like that, we just know will bring some consequences or impact on our lives. This is why we struggle with them, carefully weighing both sides, trying to figure out all the angles before making a final decision. But the ones we really need to be careful about are the ones that seem small and meaningless. The ones in which we make a decision, but we're not even aware that we have.

Like a few days ago, when Slick and the rest of my friends attacked and beat up those colored boys in the street for no reason other than they were riding their bicycles in our neighborhood. At the time, I wasn't even aware I was making a choice as I ran out there with them and restrained one of the boys. He turned out to be Jane's brother.

I didn't hurt him, I didn't hurt any of them. In fact, I was just trying to hold him down to keep Slick and the guys off him. I didn't realize that I'd made a choice to be part of it, even though I really didn't do anything. But just because I didn't think, I wasn't careful, and I didn't choose to walk away when the confrontation started- I now lost Jane forever.

And what of tonight? I unconsciously chose to get into that car with my friends. It wasn't a deliberate choice. I was barely aware of it at all.

My mind had been replaying the last few hours. The look on Jane's face. Anger, hurt and disgust as she walked away leaving me just standing in the road.

The fight with my father. He wore the same expression as Jane when I stormed out, leaving him just standing there in the kitchen.

Then the same look on Sonny's face as he accused me, me, of all people, of trying to kill him. He slapped me hard. Twice. Sonny had never laid a hand on me before in anger, not even once, no matter what- and it hurt. But nowhere near as much as his words.

I left him, Jimmy and Danny just standing there on the sidewalk as I walked away stunned, wiping the tears from my face. I felt completely drained, both emotionally and mentally. So when I saw the car parked up the road, my friends' smiling and welcoming faces, beckoning me to join them, there was no choice to be made. I didn't even give it a single thought as I climbed right into the back seat.

But as we drove, I saw the Molotov cocktails in the box next to me on the floor. Slick passed a gun to Ralphie, who complained that Slick kept the bigger one for himself. They explained their plan and where we were going, and I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted out, but by then it was too late. I couldn't tell them to pull over so I could leave. Not now. What would they say? I already knew. They'd say I was chicken. They'd call me a dog, a mutt. Tell me that I had no heart.

Whether I wanted to or not, I was already there so I had to go along. I just wished over and again that I'd never gotten in the car with them, because somehow I just knew that at some point, in some way, I'd come to regret my unintended choice.

Sonny was right. Even the small choices, if you're not careful, could mess you up pretty bad.

Slick obviously didn't know about carefully considering one's choices either, because even after Sonny had given him a warning, he actually tried it again. As if he really believed that Sonny didn't understand him the first time?

"Sonny, c'mon, he's with us and"-

That's as far as he got. In just one swift move, Sonny's hand shot into the car and grabbed the back of Slick's head, then flew forward smashing his face into the dashboard. It made a loud 'splat', and drops of blood sprayed the windshield.

I saw there was a larger, circular pattern of blood left on the dash as Slick's head came back up. Both of his hands dripped with blood as they covered his nose and mouth.

"Oh my nose!" he exclaimed, his eyes wide with an expression indicating that even after seeing the mood that Sonny was in, even after being given a warning that would have caused someone twice his age and size to back down and shut up, Sonny's actions were still a total surprise to him. A completely unpredictable and unexpected turn of events.

Now that I was thinking about it, he had to be the biggest moron jerkoff of all not see it coming. Sonny was right about this, as well.

Sonny's finger was back, pointing right between Slick's eyes, "I said, shut up you."

His face and voice made it clear that things would only get worse if Slick so much as even breathed too loudly. This time Slick, like Aldo, Ralphie and Mario, got the hint. Sonny grabbed the door handle, yanked it open with a squeal of protest from the hinges, and looked directly at me, "Move. Now."

Ralphie, who was sitting on my right, immediately pushed the front seat forward, not even caring that Slick was sitting there. He then grabbed me by the jacket and shoved me out towards Sonny.

Maybe my friends were morons, but even a moron knew that being in a position that blocked the path between Sonny and whatever Sonny wanted, especially when he was in a mood like this, wasn't exactly good for one's health.

My foot caught on the box of cocktails on the way out, and even though it was covered, the glass clinked together as I stumbled through the doorway, almost falling on my face onto the ground.

Sonny caught me and dragged me out the rest of the way, passing me to Jimmy, who led me to his car, parked directly behind us. I knew then that they'd been following us since we left.

As we approached the Cadillac, I heard Sonny issue a final threat, "For the last time, stay away from this kid. I won't say it again." And then a door slammed shut.

Without a word, Jimmy opened the rear passenger door. After I slipped in, he shut it and took the seat in front of me, still silent.

Danny, sitting behind the wheel this whole time, was the first to speak. "How you doing, C?"

I sighed. It was good to hear a friendly voice. One that wasn't getting an excited thrill over the prospect of hurting people, and not one that wanted to hurt me. "Not so good, Danny" I answered honestly.

I don't know if he intended to respond or not, because just then the door to my left opened and Sonny joined me in the back seat. Danny checked us in the rearview mirror.

"Just drive," Sonny ordered. Danny obeyed.

We went down the road in complete silence for a few minutes, all three men in the car sitting motionless, staring straight ahead. Now, this was a bit of a contrast for me, to jump from one car with music blasting, with four guys all laughing boisterously and yelling to be heard over the radio as well as each other, to find myself now traveling in what seemed like a rolling luxury tomb.

But what really bothered me was why was I even here?

I snuck a quick sideways glance at Sonny. If he noticed or not, I really didn't know. I just assumed he'd gone through all the trouble to follow me, then stop us, pull me out of the car, and put me in here to talk to me. But he hadn't said a single word yet. So, what was this really about? Some sort of bizarre kidnapping?

To hell with it. If he wasn't going to say anything, then I would.

"I can't believe it. After all this time you don't even trust me?"

I blurted it out a little more forcefully than I intended to, but it was true. I couldn't believe it. Not even when it came from my own mouth.

A barely audible sigh escaped from him. When he turned to me, the anger had gone from his face, replaced with... well, I really don't know. I'd never seen him like that before. At the time, I thought it was sadness, but now looking back, it may have been regret.

"Listen C." His voice was low, soft, "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just-"

As soon as I heard the first line, my own anger bubbled up from my gut. It's not that he don't trust me?

My mind quickly replayed our 'disagreement' that had taken place on the sidewalk, less than an hour ago.

'Was there really a Jane?!' he had demanded to know, both of his large hands firmly gripping the collar of my jacket, he slammed my back into the wall for emphasis.

It didn't sound as if he believed me.

'Don't lie to me!' he had yelled in my face.

Slap!

'Don't you fucking lie to me!'

That didn't sound very trusting to me.

Now he was going to sit here and say, 'It's not that I don't trust you?'. Just who is the real liar here, Sonny?

Yeah, I was angry.

"No, I'm not going to listen." This time my tone was intended, "You don't even believe me that there really was a Jane. Don't you think it could have been in the car when I picked it up, and that me and Jane could have got killed?! You never thought that, did you?"

He just stared straight ahead in silence. Was that a yes? Or no? Or was he just thinking it over?

I had no idea what was going through his mind at that moment, but I was aware that my anger was starting to give way to an uncomfortable feeling. I didn't like dealing with Sonny when he was pissed off, but at least it was familiar ground, and experience had taught me exactly how to proceed when he was in such a mood.

But this unresponsive man sitting next to me, just staring straight ahead at nothing in front of him, his face completely unreadable- this I didn't care for at all. It felt as if he was a total stranger to me, and I had no idea how to speak to him.

I tried to sound more curious than accusing, "Don't you trust anybody?"

Well, at least that time he gave me an answer.